1979 –Heng Samrin , Hun Sen, Chea Sim

World Vision comes back into Cambodia through Stan Mooneyham's unique talk with Hun Sen. Work on the Pediatric Hospital Begins.  Enter MCC , Church World Service, Unicef,  AFSC, OXFAM, COER,  LWS, etc.

1979 –1993, The Thai Border Camps

Site – 8 (DK).   Site B- (Func.).  Site 2 – KPNLF. Nong Chhan –KPNLF.  Khao I. Dang- Neutral.  Phnom Chaat – DK.  Bung Ampill - DK

Many fled to the Thai border where the Thai quickly set up refugee camps. The Thais were overwhelmed by this and in desperation tricked a couple hundred Khmer refugees into boarding a bus for BKK then to the US .  They took them up north and dumped them off a cliff into a mind field. Many lay for days among their own filth and body parts of loved ones as they tried to move through the minefield. Anyone trying to climb back up the cliff was gunned down with automatic weapons and M-60 machine gun fire. This was all to tell the International Community, 'we refuse do this alone'!

Khao I Dang (KID) became the biggest of the camps, sporting 150,000 Cambodian refugees. This became the second biggest city in Thailand .  As Phnom Penh in the early '70's was a vehicle for the spread of the Gospel, so were the camps. Many people came to Christ in the camps through other Christian refugees, through CMA, World Vision, World Relief YWAM, Southern Baptists, OMF, COR and the other Christian Groups who ministering there. This was the platform which enabled many of today's overseas church leaders to be expatriated to a third country where they were sponsored by a church, converted and went on to Bible college.  Many have come back to Cambodia to serve and plant churches. Most Khmer in America had at one time been in Khao I Dang. Refugees in other camps like Site 2 or Site B, etc, ended up being repatriated to Cambodia in 1992-93. There were many valid conversions in the camps.  As many as were lost during Pol Pot were filtering back from the camps.

There were Catholic organization doing some effective relief work in the camps like COER or CARE, etc.

Not much seemed to be  going on inside Cambodia from '79 to '85 or so concerning the church but we know that the Holy Spirit was preparing people on the outside, in the camps and certainly with in Cambodia for a great new work of the Spirit.  Some Christian staff at WV-Cambodia were having an influence through their testimony and some key Cambodians came to the Lord then.

Hun Sen's State of Cambodia  continued to fight, with the help of Vietnam , against 3 factions who were entrenched along the Thai border in the mountainous terrain.  They were the KPNLF ( Old Lon Nol Republic ), FUNCINPEC (Royalists) and the Khmer Rouge.  The United States did not recognize Hun Sen's government in the United Nations but instead recognized the Khmer Rouge representative. The United States supported the Khmer Rouge in the war against Hun Sen's Vietnamese backed government with arms and intelligence up until the 1991 Paris Peace Accords.

Meanwhile, in France (1985)

The New Translation Committee in 1985, upon the suggestion of the French Bible Society, chose to begin a new work apart from the work begun in 1973 by the UBS  because only the first four chapters of Matthew survived the Khmer Rouge Holocaust.  Fr. Ponchaud, who had helped with the New Translation as an exegete, took the remaining chapters of Matthew to France and produced a Roman Catholic Translation which the UBS rejected because it contained much too much Buddhist terminology.  After meetings in France in January and April of ‘85, a new committee of four was proposed by Rev. Norman Ens (CMA),  and formed.  That committee was made up  of Rev. Arun Sok Nhep, Father Francois Ponchaud, Mr. Prom Chan and Mr. Sokhom Chhoung.  Many other nationals and expatriates were included in the revision work.  Here were a group of people who saw the opportunity to make a better translation for the believer and unbeliever alike.  They now had the resources: Better manuscripts, modern translation methods, straight from the original languages, Khmer stylists, Khmer revisionists,  all well educated and mature in the faith.  One can only appreciate their hard work and initiative.  

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